1. Field
This disclosure relates generally to packaging, and, more particularly, to a method of packaging a dressing designed to be affixed to the skin, such as a dressing for a wound, a medicated patch or a nasal dilator strip.
2. Background
Dressings designed to be applied to the skin come in an almost limitless array of shapes and sizes. Moreover, such dressings are used in many different ways. Since, they are designed to be applied to the skin, it is important that they not harbor pathogens that could cause (or increase) any undesirable adverse effect or adversely affect the desired benefit they are intended to have, particularly in the case of medicinal dressings. Thus, common to all, is often the need to package them in a way that allows them to remain sterile until use is required and to allow them to be easily removed from the package and applied to the skin when use is required.
It has long been a known problem that, if a user of such a dressing has to touch the part of the dressing intended to be applied to the skin during application, it increases the risk of contamination of the dressing with undesired pathogens. In addition, many packages that are configured to address the above problem are either difficult to open and apply the dressing without undesirable touching and potential contamination of the dressing or are more costly to manufacture because they employ elaborate multi-piece configurations involving multiple steps.
Moreover, such dressings are sold by the millions on an annual basis. At the volumes manufactured and sold, even a slight cost increase in the manufacturing process (whether due to the need for additional materials and/or processing steps) can have a significant effect on profits.
Thus, there is still a need for a way to manufacture a package for a dressing that has a lower material and/or manufacturing processing cost and will still maintain a dressing in sterile condition until needed and, when use is required, be easy to use, and can help avoid undesirable touching and potential contamination of the dressing while it is affixed to the skin.